


239 Days

by Nichneven13



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 2016 hiatus, Camping, Canon Compliant, Gen, Harry's hair is short, Leeds festival, M/M, No Zayn, Reunion, Weed, illegal drugs, mentions of Freddie Reign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7522690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nichneven13/pseuds/Nichneven13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 239 days since One Direction started in on their hiatus, but it's the 2016 Leeds Festival and the boys reunite for the occasion. </p><p>This one feels a little lazy and poignant. The M rating is for the weed the boys smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	239 Days

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, my heart breaks when I think about the hiatus and the possibility of them not coming back as a unit. So this is what came out of my latest wave of panic and heart ache. Completely unbeta'd, so any mistakes are all mine.
> 
> I am looking for a beta, by the way, in this fandom. If you're interested, or know a good one, let me know.

It’s been 239 days. Harry hasn’t seen them in 239 days. For the first 36 days, they didn’t even exchange texts. It was a break, right, and they’d vowed to leave each other be. But it was them and they broke. Of course they did. It was Niall who folded first, sending out: “For fuck sake, lads, enough.”

After that, the texts had come regularly. Not every day, but enough to remain connected. They had all met up in London once, but not Harry. No, Harry had been filming at the time.

But now, 239 days later, Harry is in Leeds, waiting in the BBC 1 VIP area for his friends to arrive for their shared weekend. His tent, bed roll, and duffle bag sittting at his feet. His legs rattle from side to side, anxious for the reunion.

“Hey, loser,” a familiar voice comes from behind. Harry leaps to his feet and spins to see Niall grinning at him. The blond is broader in the shoulders and his hair is longer, brushing at the back of his tee shirt. “Glad to see you dressed for the occasion.”

“Hey now,” Harry laughs, reaching out to hug Niall and slap him on the back. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Jesus, Hazza,” Liam comes up in midst the hug. Harry peels away from Niall to fall into Liam. “2013 called and they want their wardrobe back. I thought you gave up the grandpa sweaters and scarves .”

“Of course you two are ganging up on me,” Harry groans, but it’s a happy noise. “Get it out of your systems now. I want nothing but sweetness and love this weekend.”

“Bollocks to that,” Niall shoves Harry away to hug Liam. “The whole reason I even came to this muddy mess was to laugh at your film-star arse.”

It doesn’t take long for them to fall into old patterns, old roles. Like, a minute, tops. Niall stays to Liam’s left and Harry stays to Liam’s right, flanking the one who has always led from behind. The public may call Harry their frontman, but to the four who matter, they know it’s all Liam.

“Ah,” Liam says, jerking his chin into the middle distance. “Here comes Louis. He does like to make an entrance.”

Harry watches Louis approach, the way his shoulders sway with each step. Harry’s legs are heavy and oddly still, holding him in place. He tugs at the cuffs of his overlarge black sweater, hiding his fidgety fingers. They itch; they burn. It’s been 239 days.

239 days.

The clock winds back to zero in the time it takes for Louis’ face to spread into a smile that bears his teeth and crinkles his eyes. And then Harry’s moving.  
There’s not a moment between standing still and moving. It happens all at once, like he’s been coiled and waiting for this for 239 days. The soggy grass beneath his boots give a bounce and roll to his steps, slowing him in a minutely momentous way.

Louis drops his bag—no tent, no bedroll—tilts forward and runs toward Harry, grass tearing beneath his every step. Five, six, seven strides.

They collide somewhere between Harry’s last, languid step and Louis’ frantic leap. This is a choreography long written and in no need of practice or refreshing. Harry’s arms go around Louis’ waist, circling and pulling; locking tight at his elbows. Louis’ arms slide around Harry’s neck in a practiced motion, circling and pulling; locking tight at his elbows. Harry feels Louis’ toes stepping on the toes of his boots to get closer, so he lifts him—just a little—to get him closer closer closer.

“You cut your hair,” is what Louis says, whispered into Harry’s neck. “I hate it.”

“How’s Freddie?” Harry asks at the same time, directly into Louis’ ear, his lower lip catching once against the shell of his ear.

Neither responds to the other. Not yet. Harry lifts Louis a little higher off the ground. Louis repositions his arms to push his hands under the forest green beanie Harry’s wearing, curling his fingers into the soft, short hair at the back of his head.

“Harry,” Louis says.

“Louis,” Harry breathes, letting his nose push into the skin at Louis’ temples. He inhales the smell he has missed acutely for 239 days.

“No curls,” Louis says, tightening his grip in Harry’s hair. 

“They’ll grow back,” Harry assures him, his nose sneaking down behind Louis’ ear.

“Stay.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry agrees, even though he’s not sure what that means. He dips his hands lower, to the space at the bottom of Louis’ spine and scoops him up.

“All right, all right,” Liam grumbles from beside them. His hand locks around Louis’ left shoulder and tugs to disengage the reuniting pair. “Let’s not piss away the past three years’ work. This is too public and too handsy.”

“It’s been 239 days,” Harry remarks, stepping away from Louis, one point of contact at a time: arms, chest, hips, knees, toes, hands. 

“Not that he’s counting,” Niall laughs, knocking Harry out of the way in order to hug Louis hello. They part, but Niall leaves a casual arm around his shoulder, keeping Harry firmly at bay. “Let’s keep the distance, just in case. Shall we make camp?”

It takes thirty minutes to walk to the small area at the outskirts of the festival grounds—far from the official entrances and exits, but close enough to the BBC1 stage to not accidentally miss The 1975 once the alcohol and weed comes out.

The tents are erected with alacrity, no one mentioning that there are only three tents for the four of them. It’s status quo, despite the 239 days.

“Has anyone spoken to Zayn lately, then?” Liam asks, hours later. His eyes are soft and shiny in the moonlight, thanks to the joint being passed around the tight circle. “Saw him at an after party after the BRITS, but that was February.”

“You know I haven’t,” Louis says on a long exhale, his hand barely twitching to his right before Harry’s fingers take the joint. “Don’t expect I ever will. You know.”

“You know you can start forgiving him now,” Niall points out, ever the mediator. “I told him as much, too. I talked to him last week.”

Harry chuckles a little, as nervous as always when someone name drops Zayn. He talks to his old friend about as often as he’s talked to this lot during their time apart. They were even working on a song together, something soulful and lovely for Harry’s solo project. He hasn’t told any of them about that—he isn’t sure how Louis would react to that. He passes the half-smoked joint to Liam and slouches to his left, over the vinyl arms of his camp chair, pressing his shoulder tighter against Louis’. 

“I’ll save it for the reunion tour in twenty years,” Louis mutters, turning his head so it rams into Harry’s shoulder and stops short. Harry ducks his head down and to the left, bumping his chin against Louis’ forehead, and huffs a laugh. That sort of joke is not the sort to share with the group. 

“Who’s hungry?” Niall asks, pushing to his feet and handing the joint back to Harry, effectively screwing the order of the pass. Harry pulls deep because he’s never been one to say no. “I’m going to the food trucks. Anyone?”

“Yeah,” Liam jumps to his feet, swaying not even a little. He’s always been the most solid on his feet, regardless of the circumstances. “I passed a falafel truck that smelled close to heaven. Haz? Lou?”

“Bring me hummus,” Harry says, stretching his long legs and toeing off his scuffed work boots. “And something in the fruit family; I’m not picky.”

“Chips,” Louis says, grabbing the joint from Harry again. “I need chips. With an absurd amount of ketchup. And a pickle, if you can find one. Christ, this is hungry weed.”

“Get it yourself, arseholes,” Niall suggests, but he’s grinning as he follows Liam out of camp, so Harry knows they’ll hunt and gather for him and Louis. There are some things that never change, and the group disbursing to leave Harry and Louis alone whenever feasible is one of those things. 

“That was more subtle than usual,” Louis says, scooching his chair a little closer to Harry so that their arm rests form an overlapping mega-arm rest. He picks up the warm beer out of Harry’s cup holder and tosses it unceremoniously to the ground at their feet. It allows the chairs three more inches of overlap and closeness. “At least there will be chips.”

“Unless they don’t come back,” Harry says. He lifts his arm and drapes it over Louis’ shoulders, pulling him a little closer. They’ve changed, Louis’ shoulders, in the past 239 days. They are sloped and shaped in a new way, not bigger, exactly. They are the shoulders of a fully grown man without any future developments scheduled. 

“I hope they don’t come back,” Louis says directly into the skin beneath Harry’s ear. 

“Me, too.”

There should be a bevy of words between them. They should catch up on each other’s lives. They should admit that the separation sucks. They should laugh and joke and tell stories. But they don’t. They pass the joint back and forth, silently allowing it to burn to the end, the last drag.

“Last one,” Harry says, joint hovering in front of his lips. It’s potent, this weed, and it’s been a long time since he’s done this (241 days, he thinks, the night before the night before their last day). He’s had more than he normally would, what with Liam and Niall abandoning the cause, and he feels blurred around the edges and hyperaware of Louis’ heat. “Want to share it?”

“Mmhm,” Louis peels himself off Harry and turns in his chair. Waiting. His eyes are red and his lids are low.

Harry keeps his eyes on Louis as he inhales, a small furrow between his eyes as he concentrates on filling his lungs. Once he’s satisfied, he flicks the roach into the crackling fire and leans across the mega- arm rest. Louis meets him there, always meeting him exactly in the middle.

Louis’ mouth is already open when Harry’s lips land. He makes quick work of opening his own mouth and exhaling slowly. His hand lands on Louis’ chest, so he can feel the inhale. And the slow, steady thump of his heart.

They pull away when Louis coughs. “Jesus,” he says with a laugh. “When did you develop an iron lung? That was so much.”

Harry grins with the happiness only quality weed can bring on and collapses back in his chair. 

“You have gotten me extraordinarily high.”

“That was the plan,” Harry says. He readjusts the beanie covering his shorter hair. 

“Let’s see it then,” Louis says, eyes locked on the hat. 

“No,” he says, clutching his hand to the beanie in defense. It’s ridiculous, he knows, but he’s embarrassed for Louis to see it so short and plain. “It looks stupid.”

“Well, yes,” Louis agrees, but he’s reaching up and tugging Harry’s hand away, and with it, the hat. “But I still want to.”

Harry sits bare before him, rigid and waiting for judgement.

“Hazza,” Louis says, his voice low and reverent. His slender fingers push through the thick hair and get tangled, even without the curls.

“I know,” Harry flushes. It’s grown out some, but not enough. It’s a mixture of wavy and straight and curly, like it always is when it’s too short. Harry Styles was not meant to have short hair; it was a curse, he thought, and thank Christ he’s in the music industry. He’d be a shit businessman with long hair and tattoos.

“It’ll grow back,” Louis echoes Harry’s earlier proclamation, his voice cast gentle and reassuring. He curls his fingers, using his grip to pull Harry’s face closer. “Soon, yeah?”

“Yeah, Lou,” Harry says, swaying closer. The pressure of the hair pulling taut against the follicles of his scalp tingles. He leans in and presses his lips against Louis’, as normal as drawing air into his lungs.

It doesn’t last long. It doesn’t go anywhere. It never does. It doesn’t have to. Some things never change.


End file.
